Asura’s Wrath hands on at MCM Expo

Asura’s Wrath is a beat-em-up title born out of a collaboration between CyberConnnect2 and Capcom. The game has been heavily influenced by east Asian mythology much like God of War was influenced by Greek Mythology.

You play as Asura, a former demigod who has had his powers and daughter taken away from him by the Seven Deities. Enraged, Asura seeks vengeance upon those who have wronged him. However, Asura found that his enraged state can be used to his advantage. The developers have said that the game continually changes fighting styles, with Asura’s stances and attacks changing, dependant upon the way that the game’s story changes and shifts. For example if Asura is angry ingame, you will fight as him with six arms. When you are getting beaten down Asura may only have two arms and the fighting styles shift with the amount of arms Asura may have and that’s dependant upon how he’s feeling within the context of the game.

When the demo booted up (all in Japanese, I should note) Asura was facing off against another shirtless, angry god on the moon. You’re given the option to interject whilst he is talking and just punch him in the face. It’s handled much like the renegade or paragon options are in Mass Effect 2, and afterwards you’re given a QTE prompt to punch the enemy in the face. After that you’re dropped straight into the fight. Before I could even figure out the controls I was dead. The enemy had completely decimated me.

I quickly became more enraged than Asura, with my feeble attempts at getting to grips with the controls and what each button does, the fights can be compared to those seen in Bayonetta or Devil May Cry. You are able to lock on, dodge, but surprisingly you’re not able to block. This means that you’ll have to rely on your twitch reactions with dodging and timing you attacks correctly. Jumping straight into the boss battle may not be the wisest of ideas considering how difficult the game is, but I eventually got to grips with the controls and got into the groove and flow of combat. Cyberconnect 2 are no strangers to the close quarters beat-em-up genre, with one of their main titles being the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm games being the biggest of the lot, the QTE’s don’t feel forced and are surprisingly intuitive.

It’s still hard to judge whether or not Asura’s Wrath will be a success. The combat engine does show promise, but right now the sheer difficulty of the game is incredibly off putting. Outside that the game looks to be rich with creativity and I look forward to seeing the final product.

Asura’s Wrath will be out on February 3rd 2012 for PS3 and Xbox 360, with Capcom and CyberConnect2 currently pondering whether to release the game on Wii U. Of course this game is available to play at London MCM Expo this weekend.